After growing up in hiding with only a mechanical crow to call a friend, seventeen-year-old Al isn’t like the other boys at the academy. She isn’t a boy at all. She’s a liar. She hates being one, but Astova isn’t safe for girls, especially girls like her.

 

A wife or a courtesan are a woman’s only options.

 

When Al is forced on a routine scouting mission with her stuck-up rival, she accidentally unearths a dark conspiracy involving her birth mother. Yearning for answers, Al digs deeper, but the truth threatens her very existence. 

 

Al must decipher who her real allies are before it’s too late.

Her secrets could kill her, but could love be worth the risk?